Week in Ethereum News

News and Links

Layer 1

• [Eth 2.0] Lighthouse fortnight client update – devcon, libp2p in Rust, basic block processing
  
• [Eth 2.0] Client validator architecture notes
  
• [Eth 2.0] Network-adjusted timestamps
  
• [Eth 2.0] The economic incentives of staking discussion
  
• [Casper CBC] Aditya Asgaonkar’s Casper CBC explainer
  

Layer 2

• Part 2 of POA Network’s how Honey Badger BFT works
  
• Raiden monthly updates. also, v0.16 release
  

Stuff for developers

• MetaMask’s privacy mode (EIP1102). Right now, it’s opt-in for users, but devs should update. Their mobile app is aiming for q1 2019
  
• Leo Alt: built-in formal verification in Solidity in the SMTChecker and how it works
  
• A quick dive into Trail of Bits’ Slither, their Solidity static analyzer
  
• solpp – Solidity preprocessor and flattener
  
• Tutorial on a private layer 2 voting system with Enigma
  
• Zeppelin’s Solidity compiler audit
  
• Pipeline visual IDE now available as a Remix plugin
  
• Atomic batched transactions  -  multiple ERC20 transfers at once through MetaTX
  
• Parity’s Fether – alpha release of a wallet with a light client, so you can embed light clients in your dapps. (Not audited, defaults to Kovan, don’t use on mainnet yet)
  
• meeseeks.app – a static file hosted on a CDN to allow websites easier IPFS hosting with human-readable ENS names.
  

Ecosystem

• Burner Wallet runs on POA’s xDAI and exchanges value between phones without app download
  
• ConsenSys Grants – $500k given through Gitcoin in amounts of 10k-25k
  
• Status’ Cryptolife hackathon winners
  
• MyCrypto’s Taylor Monahan: the unintended consequences of product design
  

Enterprise

• AWS and Kaleido announce plug and play marketplace for enterprise
  
• BBVA, MUFG and BNP Paribas do $150m syndicate loanfor Red Electronica on a private chain but timestamped to the mainchain
  

Governance and Standards

• Core devs call. Constantinople hard fork scheduled for Jan 16.
  
• Whitelisting holders and traders of security tokens with ERC-1404
  
• Security token standards creating automatic compliance
  
• Péter Szilágyi proposes Ethereum Engineering Efforts – document (and improve) the necessary cross-team processes
  
• EIP1559: fee market change for short-term volatility in block size instead of transaction fees
  

Project Updates

• Maker: Getting to fully collateralized Dai on mainnet. Also interesting data analysis of Maker over the last month
  
• Augur 2.0 will cost 25-40% less gas and in the future may run in the browswer without the need for an app. In the meantime, v1.7.1 is out
  
• Gitcoin has integrated ERC1337 subscriptions to allow devs stable periodic income for OSS work
  
• How TruSet thinks about capital markets reference data
  
• Chainlink acquires Town Crier to use enclaves for oracles.
  
• SingularDTV lines up Narcosstar Pedro Pascal’s Prospectfilm for streaming platform in 2019
  
• IBM announces its Data Shield Experimental with iExec (SGX)
  

Interviews, Podcasts, Videos, Talks

• Zooko talks Sapling and more on Zero Knowledge
  
• Video of Future of layer 2 meetup at Devcon
  
• Joe Lubin keynote at WebSummit
  
• A print Q&A with ConsenSys’ Sam Cassatt and Joe Lubin
  
• Brendan Eich on What Bitcoin Did
  
• Maker’s Steven Becker on BoostVC podcast
  

Tokens / Business / Regulation

• The court docs settling SEC’s case against EtherDeltafounder Zack Coburn. He paid almost $400k, which is substantial but a fraction of his earnings and he admitted no guilt. The SEC got to claim that ED traded securities, without having to litigate it and risk losing jurisdiction. Not clear what facts the SEC considers to be dealbreakers and what is mere dicta.
  
• Kyle Samani highlights Livepeer’s MerkleMine as an example of good token distribution
  
• Why crypto networks will eat the SaaS industry. Recommended alone for the first graphic!
  
• Tyler Cowen: the price crash could be good for web3
  

General

• “the most interesting stuff that’s going on is the beginning of execution on top of blockchain, the most obvious example being the capability of Ethereum.” – Google’s Eric Schmidtwith Tyler Cowen
  
• Alex Tapscott in NYT op-ed: “It’s Time for Online Voting”. Maybe someday, but that day seems quite a way off.
  
• Tim Swanson: Systematically important cryptocurrency networks
  
• Best thing on Twitter this week was William Shatner explaining Eth standards and governance
  

Dates of Note

Upcoming dates of note (new additions in bold):

• Dec 7-9 – ETHSingapore hackathon (ETHGlobal)
  
• Jan 10 – Mobi Grand Challenge hackathon ends
  
• Jan 29-30 – AraCon (Berlin)
  
• Feb 7-8 – Melonport’s M1 conf (Zug)
  
• Feb 15-17 – ETHDenver hackathon (ETHGlobal)
  
• Feb 23-25 – EthAustin hackathon (EthUniversal)
  

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